dilettante
Governor
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2011
- Messages
- 71
Is it just me? or maybe i'm just alone in my insane thoughts. 
rant coming, please skip to Conclusion section at the end of post if necessary thanks - management
/steps on soapbox
I have this sneaking suspicion that Civ5 will get better (AI, Diplomacy, Economic balance, victory conditions, social policies, advisors that actually have useful advice that relates to what's currently happening in the game [god I miss military advisor from civ3] city-state autonomy, maybe even religion all improved and all in the mix) and it will end up being the Civ3 version that can be modded.
Bear with me. I'll try to (poorly) attempt to justify my rambling.
Civ3 has what I termed 'elegant simplicity'. It's like chess. Easy to pick-up, very elegant and the UI is quite polished but does not lack any of the necessary info one needs but it is hard as hell to master... just take a look at Civ3's city screen and Civ4's city screen. (I play Noble in Civ4 BTS and regularly win - I can move up to Prince but I don't like Specialist Economy, I play Monarch in Civ3 and I suck...
)
Civ5 has the pared down gameplay elements of Civ4. A lot of the Civ4 folks call 'simplification'. I call it 'refinement' and it's a base on what can be built for elegant simplicity. It's not the final form, it's just needs a lot of polish.
Civ3 is a game. Yes, a very heavily stat-intensive game but at least Excel tables don't overwhelm you at any point in the game. It has a great way to present information without making it look like you're working from home. I just love Civ3's advisor screens, full of info but not overwhelming to the point of saturation. It has plenty of info but at no time does one look and say, jeez... far too much work to find out which cities are growing and how much more footsoldiers do i need to match my AI neighbor.
Civ4 is the opposite... you know those baseball obps and risp guys... the sabremetric guys... that's what it reminds me of Civ4. instead of hitting the ball and putting it in play, people obsess on how many times can a batter have contact with the ball for 3 at bats, how fast are their reaction times per pitch to steal 2nd, etc etc... kinda kills the fun of playing when one just focuses on maximizing efficiency and winning as fast as possible instead of allowing to expand, discover, make mistakes, and ultimately triumph.
It's kinda like taking something fun and a process of discovery and making it very mechanical and soul-less... challenges are great (though i can never succeed at diety) but I think people play Civ, Total War, or 4x games to act out their emperor fantasies. Emperors don't crunch numbers in excel sheets or count how many hamlets they have around the main provincial city and how much gold each hamlet is bringing. That's what ministers, advisors, and vassal lords are there for. I guess the absolute closest description I have is Civ4 is like Civ mixed with SimCity4. Lots of fun for some people but not my cup of coffee. (full disclosure: I like SimCity3000, SimCity4, and Railroad Tycoon 2).
Civ5 plays more like a game again. Yeah, it's not perfect right now but it can (and should be) fixed. The potential people see is not that it's the next coming of Civ4 messiah (like a lot of Civ4 fans thought it was going to be) but it comes back to its gameplay roots. Yes... I see you there raising your hand... but the AI sucks, but the AI couldn't embark to save its worthless ass, but but but archer-led attacks... on cities! Those are very VERY legitimate concerns and not to be dismissed lightly or at all. But the point to be made is it can be a game again instead of SOD vs SOD fights. You can actually counter-attack (or the AI if it was smart enough) to fend off city attackers since cities defend themselves now. Point is: Civ5 comes back to its root as a game, an emperor, stat-minding game but a game nonetheless.... as a game, it should be enjoyable and fun, not calculating percentages like a damn Praxis II test. A little bit of the impossible, unreal, or flight-of-fancy not completely historically accurate is ok as long as it adds a lot of fun.
Civ5 also comes back to a Civ3 type of information parsing. Clumsily executed yes but nonetheless is not overwhelming. The advisors are morons from what the Civ5 playing community has said but nothing's perfect. It's all a base... a base that can be modded to be better.
Civ3 lacked an overarching diplomacy. That is to say, there is diplomacy on a 1-to-1 level with another civ, however, alliances don't form organically and naturally. This is the one of a few triumphs Civ4 has over Civ3. I don't begrudge Civ4's diplomacy and religion-backed alliance system. It is very, very good. Civ5's diplomacy is very, very bad because of its predisposition to hate the human player's guts. Civ3's diplomacy is ROP-trespass dependent and seems inflexible to me.
So that said, diplomacy can and should be implemented in Civ5 and if we are thinking about the premise here: Civ5 transforming to become the new Civ3, we have to make this a new addition to the gameplay experience. And I believe, this will enhance the gameplay rather than detract from it.
Just imagine, a full-blown Civ3 style world-war dragging allies and launching a D-Day type invasion. How fun would that be? And for the peacemongers, imagine getting your allies and city-states sanctioning a rouge nation Iran style? Or consensus-building to pass the one-world currency or hell be elected UN leader by having alliances of city-states and nations having all pleased or better relations.
This would need to be a drastic overhaul of Civ5's city-state system since the UN victory in Civ5 is really an economic victory (is that still true patch 0.38-something-something?)
Civ3 had Le Grand Armee system with a unit count cap and accompanying hit points, Civ5 has a hit point system and a desperate need to alleviate traffic jams and problems with AI not knowing ranged units should stay back as fire support (the AI figures the closer the ranged unit is, the more damage it can do).
Army units can solve this problem... a few ranged with melee guard army + lots melee = let's take down that SOB city! plus no stack (except for the army, and it's kinda hard to get an army until pentagon)
And no rage quit since, vague outcomes are presented instead of percentages. oh how i loathe you percentages... thanks to Civ4, I'll never trust 99% anything ever again.
Civ3 has epic battles and I mean epic... as in large scale, spread on multiple fronts war. Stacks, although effective taking down big cities in Civ3, are not always the smartest ways to go. By acquiring multiple cities in multiple fronts (smaller stacks attacking different cities), the enemy's culture, reach, and resources are dwindled simultaneously... thus prosecuting the war faster and more effectively.
Civ5's 1UPT is not God's gift to civfanatics BUT Civ5's 1UPT forces the player to think of war as a battle of fronts and not a battle of two pancake stacks.
Sure, there are more factors involved in this (some having to be modded in to become this front-driven war a reality) like influence (as in influence-driven war) enemy territory penalties, let's say -1/2 hit point per 2 moves in enemy territory (strenching oil, munitions, food supply when out of allied-controlled territory), flanking enemy units or bringing fire support can affect these fronts as well... and 1UPT can deliver all these things.
The last point to be made here is that Civ5's social policy tree (and if there's a religion component in an x-pak, add that to this mix) and other additions does not necessarily mesh cohesively with Civ3's streamlined yet fun gameplay but does not detract from those core gameplay mechanics as well... rather, it complements them if modified properly. civ3 introduced Unique Units... it's only right that the torchbearer, Civ5, should have Unique Abilities as a newly introduced game changer rather than UB which CAN be a game changer, it ends up being nothing more than addition to the empire... sometimes it's an important addition (zulu's ikhanda = courthouse + barracks BEFORE COL in Civ4... top that) but it's just an enhancement and sometimes effective to the city only whereas UA's affect the empire as a whole.
Conclusion (finally, we come to a point in this rambling):
Civ5 has all of the pre-built things we love in Civ3. If we mod it properly, it can become Civ3 and it can become the holy-grail: the moddable civ3 we all know and love. Jon Shafer was a Civ3 fan. If for no other reason we can't forgive him for the jumbled mess of Civ5 right now, we can forgive him for attempting to make a moddable civ3 and that deserves a toast. This is the only time I'll toast him for Civ5.
Being its lead designer, he was ultimately responsible for the product... 2k's incompetence and share-holder pleasing aside. It's a shame he won't get to finish now and it's an even bigger shame he couldn't hear what we had to tell him on how fix the damn thing... which I think if he was still the lead, he would listen to us, the civfanatics and the community as a whole.
So here's to you Jon.
There might be a silver lining to Civ5 yet and that is to FINALLY get to properly mod Civ3, hard-code and all.
/rant off
/stepping off soapbox
/runs away while being chased by tomatoes and moderators
rant coming, please skip to Conclusion section at the end of post if necessary thanks - management
/steps on soapbox
I have this sneaking suspicion that Civ5 will get better (AI, Diplomacy, Economic balance, victory conditions, social policies, advisors that actually have useful advice that relates to what's currently happening in the game [god I miss military advisor from civ3] city-state autonomy, maybe even religion all improved and all in the mix) and it will end up being the Civ3 version that can be modded.
Bear with me. I'll try to (poorly) attempt to justify my rambling.
Civ3 has what I termed 'elegant simplicity'. It's like chess. Easy to pick-up, very elegant and the UI is quite polished but does not lack any of the necessary info one needs but it is hard as hell to master... just take a look at Civ3's city screen and Civ4's city screen. (I play Noble in Civ4 BTS and regularly win - I can move up to Prince but I don't like Specialist Economy, I play Monarch in Civ3 and I suck...
)Civ5 has the pared down gameplay elements of Civ4. A lot of the Civ4 folks call 'simplification'. I call it 'refinement' and it's a base on what can be built for elegant simplicity. It's not the final form, it's just needs a lot of polish.
Civ3 is a game. Yes, a very heavily stat-intensive game but at least Excel tables don't overwhelm you at any point in the game. It has a great way to present information without making it look like you're working from home. I just love Civ3's advisor screens, full of info but not overwhelming to the point of saturation. It has plenty of info but at no time does one look and say, jeez... far too much work to find out which cities are growing and how much more footsoldiers do i need to match my AI neighbor.
Civ4 is the opposite... you know those baseball obps and risp guys... the sabremetric guys... that's what it reminds me of Civ4. instead of hitting the ball and putting it in play, people obsess on how many times can a batter have contact with the ball for 3 at bats, how fast are their reaction times per pitch to steal 2nd, etc etc... kinda kills the fun of playing when one just focuses on maximizing efficiency and winning as fast as possible instead of allowing to expand, discover, make mistakes, and ultimately triumph.
It's kinda like taking something fun and a process of discovery and making it very mechanical and soul-less... challenges are great (though i can never succeed at diety) but I think people play Civ, Total War, or 4x games to act out their emperor fantasies. Emperors don't crunch numbers in excel sheets or count how many hamlets they have around the main provincial city and how much gold each hamlet is bringing. That's what ministers, advisors, and vassal lords are there for. I guess the absolute closest description I have is Civ4 is like Civ mixed with SimCity4. Lots of fun for some people but not my cup of coffee. (full disclosure: I like SimCity3000, SimCity4, and Railroad Tycoon 2).
Civ5 plays more like a game again. Yeah, it's not perfect right now but it can (and should be) fixed. The potential people see is not that it's the next coming of Civ4 messiah (like a lot of Civ4 fans thought it was going to be) but it comes back to its gameplay roots. Yes... I see you there raising your hand... but the AI sucks, but the AI couldn't embark to save its worthless ass, but but but archer-led attacks... on cities! Those are very VERY legitimate concerns and not to be dismissed lightly or at all. But the point to be made is it can be a game again instead of SOD vs SOD fights. You can actually counter-attack (or the AI if it was smart enough) to fend off city attackers since cities defend themselves now. Point is: Civ5 comes back to its root as a game, an emperor, stat-minding game but a game nonetheless.... as a game, it should be enjoyable and fun, not calculating percentages like a damn Praxis II test. A little bit of the impossible, unreal, or flight-of-fancy not completely historically accurate is ok as long as it adds a lot of fun.
Civ5 also comes back to a Civ3 type of information parsing. Clumsily executed yes but nonetheless is not overwhelming. The advisors are morons from what the Civ5 playing community has said but nothing's perfect. It's all a base... a base that can be modded to be better.
Civ3 lacked an overarching diplomacy. That is to say, there is diplomacy on a 1-to-1 level with another civ, however, alliances don't form organically and naturally. This is the one of a few triumphs Civ4 has over Civ3. I don't begrudge Civ4's diplomacy and religion-backed alliance system. It is very, very good. Civ5's diplomacy is very, very bad because of its predisposition to hate the human player's guts. Civ3's diplomacy is ROP-trespass dependent and seems inflexible to me.
So that said, diplomacy can and should be implemented in Civ5 and if we are thinking about the premise here: Civ5 transforming to become the new Civ3, we have to make this a new addition to the gameplay experience. And I believe, this will enhance the gameplay rather than detract from it.
Just imagine, a full-blown Civ3 style world-war dragging allies and launching a D-Day type invasion. How fun would that be? And for the peacemongers, imagine getting your allies and city-states sanctioning a rouge nation Iran style? Or consensus-building to pass the one-world currency or hell be elected UN leader by having alliances of city-states and nations having all pleased or better relations.
This would need to be a drastic overhaul of Civ5's city-state system since the UN victory in Civ5 is really an economic victory (is that still true patch 0.38-something-something?)
Civ3 had Le Grand Armee system with a unit count cap and accompanying hit points, Civ5 has a hit point system and a desperate need to alleviate traffic jams and problems with AI not knowing ranged units should stay back as fire support (the AI figures the closer the ranged unit is, the more damage it can do
).Army units can solve this problem... a few ranged with melee guard army + lots melee = let's take down that SOB city! plus no stack (except for the army, and it's kinda hard to get an army until pentagon)
And no rage quit since, vague outcomes are presented instead of percentages. oh how i loathe you percentages... thanks to Civ4, I'll never trust 99% anything ever again.
Civ3 has epic battles and I mean epic... as in large scale, spread on multiple fronts war. Stacks, although effective taking down big cities in Civ3, are not always the smartest ways to go. By acquiring multiple cities in multiple fronts (smaller stacks attacking different cities), the enemy's culture, reach, and resources are dwindled simultaneously... thus prosecuting the war faster and more effectively.
Civ5's 1UPT is not God's gift to civfanatics BUT Civ5's 1UPT forces the player to think of war as a battle of fronts and not a battle of two pancake stacks.
Sure, there are more factors involved in this (some having to be modded in to become this front-driven war a reality) like influence (as in influence-driven war) enemy territory penalties, let's say -1/2 hit point per 2 moves in enemy territory (strenching oil, munitions, food supply when out of allied-controlled territory), flanking enemy units or bringing fire support can affect these fronts as well... and 1UPT can deliver all these things.
The last point to be made here is that Civ5's social policy tree (and if there's a religion component in an x-pak, add that to this mix) and other additions does not necessarily mesh cohesively with Civ3's streamlined yet fun gameplay but does not detract from those core gameplay mechanics as well... rather, it complements them if modified properly. civ3 introduced Unique Units... it's only right that the torchbearer, Civ5, should have Unique Abilities as a newly introduced game changer rather than UB which CAN be a game changer, it ends up being nothing more than addition to the empire... sometimes it's an important addition (zulu's ikhanda = courthouse + barracks BEFORE COL in Civ4... top that) but it's just an enhancement and sometimes effective to the city only whereas UA's affect the empire as a whole.
Conclusion (finally, we come to a point in this rambling
):Civ5 has all of the pre-built things we love in Civ3. If we mod it properly, it can become Civ3 and it can become the holy-grail: the moddable civ3 we all know and love. Jon Shafer was a Civ3 fan. If for no other reason we can't forgive him for the jumbled mess of Civ5 right now, we can forgive him for attempting to make a moddable civ3 and that deserves a toast. This is the only time I'll toast him for Civ5.
Being its lead designer, he was ultimately responsible for the product... 2k's incompetence and share-holder pleasing aside. It's a shame he won't get to finish now and it's an even bigger shame he couldn't hear what we had to tell him on how fix the damn thing... which I think if he was still the lead, he would listen to us, the civfanatics and the community as a whole.
So here's to you Jon.
There might be a silver lining to Civ5 yet and that is to FINALLY get to properly mod Civ3, hard-code and all./rant off
/stepping off soapbox
/runs away while being chased by tomatoes and moderators
Alltough I can also play Civ4 and enjoy it to a certain degree, I always go back to Civ3. I think it's the huge 3D graphics that's ruining it for me.
